


nettles and broken wars

by waterlit



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Character Study, Fear, Grief/Mourning, Tragedy, old fic, this is why he's so screwed up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-07 13:42:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13435944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterlit/pseuds/waterlit
Summary: He learns night after night of the unforgiving nature of memories and the long arms of the past.





	nettles and broken wars

Some nights he wakes sweating, a scream caught dead in his throat, tears gathering in his eyes, cold sweat on his brow.

He can never quite explain why sleep comes hard for him. The nights are long and lonely, and nightly he studies the moonlight dappling his floor, listens to the shrill call of the wind under his door, watches the shadows folding like something liquid and something wicked, waiting for a sight of his long-dead kin.

When he manages to sleep, nightmares break up his nights, and he wakes with cold, clammy hands resting lightly on his throat, fear pressing against his collarbone like the ice-cold tip of a dagger, a crimson burning in his veins.

Some nights he smells blood, the thick odour of it wafting beyond his nostrils, whipping up a backlash in his stomach, the promise of entrails hanging thick behind the curtains. He doesn't dare to get out of bed on such nights; the floor is riddled with traps, cluttered with the bony, clawing fingers of those he sent walking into the unforgiving darkness.

Some nights he dreams of children in their white robes in a dark room, some no more than knee-high, and experiments carried out at night; of a flash of white light like lightning and then thunder resounding, and the wrath of God manifest around the children's throats, their bodies swelling, swelling, and their heads haloed like angels but unholy in their rejection of the Innocence, and the cries and the sobs and the tears, and Hevlaska screaming in the background, and the CROW rushing in to bury the deed and the dead.

Some nights he dreams of his boyhood, happy memories of sunshine and the sea and the grass green beneath his shoes, and the wind in his hair and the birdsong in summer, and all that changed when he turned twelve and his father took him away from the wholesome estates they had on the coast of France, back to cold, balmy England, to a draughty castle on a cliff. And then he found out where his sister was, what she was to become, what she became, the fear and the terror, the monster and the victim, the screaming likeness of their sainted ancestor, and she was hurried away to the crypt, and try as they might they could not close her eyes even in death.

She had stretched out her hand to him in those last moments, as the light died and the shadows swallowed her legs and the holy thing that took her life formed a crystalline cocoon around her, and he could do nothing, not with his father's hand resting against the curve of his shoulder, heavier than a boulder.

He tells himself, _but I had no choice!_ but the shadows still climb up the damp walls, thick with secrets and regrets, hiding death rattles and blood and battles in their midst.

Some nights he wakes sweating, the smell of freshly dug soil lingering in his lungs, and he feels a mountain sitting on his chest, and with blood-shot eyes scans the dark room for signs of life, because surely it was a dream.

Just a dream, just a dream, and he fights back the scream—

He can see his sister, her pale face turned away from the window, her hollow eyes seeking, and he's pinned to the bed and her hands come a-reaching, dagger in hand, seeking the soft shell of his throat—

and he fights back the scream—

In the morning, he wakes a pale, gaunt man, cheeks sunk in and hair combed back, toothbrush moustache quivering.

In the mirror, he looks old, just another man, just another man.

But even in the morning, the ghosts haunt him; they creep behind him, slithering in dark corridors and whispering to him in forgotten languages, and his sister comes forward and brushes her hands against his hair and opens her red, red mouth, and he fights back the scream—

Some nights he kneels and prays for real and begs for forgiveness for he has sinned so _fatherinheavenihavesinned_ and he prays for repentance because _fatherinheavenihavesinned_ and _fatherinheavenihavesinne_ d it was painful watching his sister die, her blood on his hands, so much blood on his hands, and there are the faces of the children lined up in the corridor behind.

 _Forgivemefatherforihavesinned_ , and he fights back the scream—

(For he has sinned, and sinners must pay the price).

**Author's Note:**

> First posted on FFN in Sept 2011, and titled "reverse osmosis" there. Current title taken from the poem "Unwittingly" by John Burnside. Inspired by the "killer of your own kin" scene in Chapter 150.


End file.
